Cognitive-behavioral Therapy 5

ACCURACY AND CONFIDENCE OF TRAINING THERAPISTS’ RECOGNITION OF SESSIONS BEFORE SUDDEN GAINS

Michael F. GREENFIELD* & David A.F. HAAGA American University, Washington DC, USA   Abstract The critical session hypothesis (Tang & DeRubeis, 1999) posits that patient changes in a single critical therapy session lead to sudden gains in psychotherapy outcome.  This study examines if psychotherapy trainee raters can accurately differentiate critical sessions leading to sudden gains […]

COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY IN PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING; A CASE ANALYSIS

The paper describes a cognitive-behavioral intervention in the case of a 29 year-old patient brought to therapy by his mother and girlfriend due to excessive gambling, (roulette and slot machine games). The patient was diagnoses with pathological gambling, meeting 9 of 10 DSM-IV-TR criteria for this diagnosis. Also, he scored very high (18) on the 20-questions questionnaire of Gamblers Anonymous (USA). His case was approached by a two-fold intervention: (1) medication: Trileptal (Oxcarbazepine) in a dosage of 3x1 tb/day (1 tablet=300 mg), for 6 months and (2) cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) over 20 sessions, delivered in a 1 session/week format for the first 3 months, followed by 1 session every other week, and by 1 monthly session towards the end. The CBT package comprised hypnosis and self-hypnosis techniques and REBT techniques. The evolution of the case was favorable.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in the case of a teenager with conversion disorder with mixed presentation

This paper discusses a cognitive-behavioral therapeutic intervention combined with suggestive therapy and the use of a chemical agent (placebo) in the case of a 13- year old teenager, named “Suzi”, hospitalized several times for conversion disorder with mixed presentation. Symptoms were different from one hospital admittance to the other, and initially included chronic vomiting, then rebel headaches and opisthotonos with lower limbs trembling and crying, functional facial paralysis, non-kinetic mutism with language regression, lower limbs hypotony, major walking disorders and fainting episodes.
From a psychological point of view, her mother describes her as being sensitive, hyperemotional, emotionally unstable, anxious, impressionable, and loving to be the center of attention. The teenager’s family was in harmony, but in conflict with one neighboring family. The polymorph symptoms were interpreted as conversion disorder occurring in a conflict situation, and based on a developing personality with sensitive and histrionic traits. We initiated a cognitive-behavioral and suggestive therapy combined with the use of a chemical agent (placebo). A favorable evolution was noticed with every hospitalization.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy in the case of a teenager with conversion disorder with mixed presentation

This paper discusses a cognitive-behavioral therapeutic intervention combined with suggestive therapy and the use of a chemical agent (placebo) in the case of a 13- year old teenager, named “Suzi”, hospitalized several times for conversion disorder with mixed presentation. Symptoms were different from one hospital admittance to the other, and initially included chronic vomiting, then rebel headaches and opisthotonos with lower limbs trembling and crying, functional facial paralysis, non-kinetic mutism with language regression, lower limbs hypotony, major walking disorders and fainting episodes.
From a psychological point of view, her mother describes her as being sensitive, hyperemotional, emotionally unstable, anxious, impressionable, and loving to be the center of attention. The teenager’s family was in harmony, but in conflict with one neighboring family. The polymorph symptoms were interpreted as conversion disorder occurring in a conflict situation, and based on a developing personality with sensitive and histrionic traits. We initiated a cognitive-behavioral and suggestive therapy combined with the use of a chemical agent (placebo). A favorable evolution was noticed with every hospitalization.

A confirmatory factor analysis of the attitudes and belief scale 2

The aim of the present study was to empirically investigate the theoretical matrix on the basis of which the Attitudes and Beliefs Scale 2 (ABS2, DiGiuseppe et al., 1988) was developed. 300 undergraduates volunteered to complete the Romanian version of the ABS2 (ABS2-R, Macavei, 2002). A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using Lisrel (8,72) framework (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 2004). The factor structure of the ABS2, derived on the three major theoretical criteria (evaluative processes, domains of content, and modality) was compared with the most viable factor structure resulted from a previous exploratory factor analysis (DiGiuseppe at al., 1989). The factor structure model found by DiGiuseppe et al. (1989) was the most plausible, followed by the two-factor structure model derived on modality. Future practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.